Fact Check: Gates tries to clarify role of missiles in Europe

An email states that Dick Cheney says President Barack Obama scrapped the Bush administration’s missile defense system in Europe “at the mere request” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The facts: Cheney, George W. Bush’s vice president, discussed European missile defense on May 18 on”Fox News Sunday” in the context of the crisis in Ukraine caused by Russia seizing control of Crimea, FactCheck.org notes.

Cheney blamed the crisis, in part, on Obama allowing himself to be “pushed around” by Putin — including with regard to Bush’s defense plan, which called for the U.S. to place fixed radars in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

The Washington Post reported at the time that the Bush administration said the plan was “not meant to counter Russia, but to protect against a ‘rogue state’ such as Iran or North Korea attacking with a small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles,” FactCheck.org reports.

Then-defense secretary Robert Gates recommended the plan and wrote in a Sept. 19, 2009, New York Times op-ed piece that he told Bush it was the “best plan” at that time.

Gates stayed on as Obama’s defense secretary for more than two years. He recommended that Obama scrap the plan because of new intelligence showing Iran’s long-range missile threat did not develop as quickly as the country’s short- and medium-range missile programs, FactCheck.org reports.

In his recently published memoir “Duty,” Gates writes that the Bush plan for 10 interceptors in Poland “would easily be overwhelmed by a salvo launch of dozens of shorter-range missiles.”

Gates also writes that the decision to scrap the Bush plan and develop a new one also had the support of top military leaders who served both presidents. It did not come “at the mere request” of Putin, as Cheney said.

Gates’ book, FactCheck.org points out, does criticize Obama on other levels. But in this case, Gates — the one who would know — pointedly writes that critics who say the president caved to the Russians are wrong. The Russians, he writes, actually saw Obama’s plan as more of a threat than the Bush plan.